Amtrak 501 Train Derailment Kills Three

On December 18, 2017, Amtrak Train 501 derailed as it
was making its first trip with paying passengers from Seattle, Washington, to
Portland, Oregon. The derailment happened as the train was crossing an overpass
over Interstate 5 in DuPont at around 7:43 a.m., and sent multiple cars
hurtling to the highway below, damaging at least five passenger vehicles.

Three people died in the Washington Amtrak train
derailment, with an estimated 100 others, including eight on the highway, taken
to local hospitals.

Killed in the crash were:

61-year-old
Jim Hamre

35-year-old
Zack Willhoite and

40-year-old
Benjamin Gran.

Jim Hamre and Zack Willhoite
were rail safety advocates.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB), the train's locomotive, power car, and two passenger cars derailed onto
the Interstate, coming into contact with 14 highway vehicles.

The
crew did not use any personal electronic devices immediately before the
crash;

Around
six seconds before the derailment, the engineer mentioned being
over-speed;

The
engineer applied the locomotive's brakes but did not appear to use
emergency-braking mode; and

The
final speed of the train as recorded was 78 miles-per-hour in a 30
mile-per-hour zone, though the report does not note why the train was
traveling too fast.

The NTSB also noted that the engineer, who is
55-year-old, worked for Amtrak since May 2004 and was promoted to engineer in
2013. The conductor worked for Amtrak since June 2010 and was promoted to
conductor in November 2011. When the NTSB wrote its preliminary report, it had
not spoken with either the engineer or the conductor due to their injuries.

WA Amtrak Train Not Equipped with Positive Train
Control

"Positive Train Control (PTC), an advanced train control system mandated by Congress in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, is designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, overspeed derailments, incursions into established work zone limits, and the movement of a train through a switch left in the wrong position," the NTSB wrote. "If a train does not slow for an upcoming speed restriction, PTC will alert the engineer to slow the train. If an appropriate action is not taken, PTC will apply the train brakes before it violates the speed restriction. In this accident, PTC would have notified the engineer of train 501 about the speed reduction for the curve; if the engineer did not take appropriate action to control the train's speed, PTC would have applied the train brakes to maintain compliance with the speed restriction and to stop the train."

Safety Advocates Weigh in on DuPont Train Crash

In an editorial, the editorial board of
The New York Times called the Washington Amtrak train derailment the result of
a "collective failure," highlighting similarities between this
derailment and the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight
people.

Regarding
Positive Train Control, the editorial board wrote "This
technology is not some hot new thing.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending it for nearly
half a century. For various reasons—including bureaucratic inertia and
penny-pinching—many railroads still don't have functioning systems in
place."

Blaming both the industry and federal and
state governments, the board noted that some railroads have made "far too
little progress" in implementing Positive Train Control.

An Associated Press article notes that 298
people have died in train crashes that proper implementation of PTC would have
prevented. An additional 6,763 people were injured, and almost $385 million in
property damage was caused in those crashes.

"We
have recommended PTC for decades," said Bella
Dinh-Zarr, NTSB member. "Unfortunately the deadline was moved farther into
the future, and every year that we wait to implement PTC to its fullest extent
means that more people will be killed and injured."
Train accident lawyer, Ronald L.M. Goldman, has been writing about this issue for
years, and said: “With rhythmic regularity, passenger trains crash, lives are
lost, and calls for PTC are renewed. Yet, little has been done to put teeth
into legislation demanding installation of this life saving system. Enough is
enough! Congress must act – and now – or more lives are sure to be sacrificed.”

The NTSB and other agencies are involved
in investigating the Washington derailment. A full report is not likely for
months at the earliest.

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